Mookie
Pearl works for the criminal underworld of New York City, dealing in the newest
drug craze that’s come to the streets of the Big Apple: the Blue stuff,
Cerulean, Peacock Powder. It comes straight from the bowels of Hell itself. This
is a New York that lives alongside an opening to the real underworld.
And Mookie works for both. Take a hit of the old peacock powder and you’ll see
what you never saw before – everything that was once hidden in the cracks; the
shadows; behind the eyes of people in the streets. It opens up a whole new side
to the world around you – it opens up The Blue Blazes.
Chuck
Wendig’s latest is an urban fantasy thriller that uses a setting that’s
completely unique, and offers up a cast of characters who feel like a breath of
fresh air to the genre. It’s almost like Wendig has taken the cast of
Goodfellas and dragged them, kicking and screaming into a fantasy reality of
New York, opened up the playground and let them run loose. The story seems at
its roots to be typical gangland mafia fare, but with the real underworld
alongside the criminal one, and the different “pigments” of hell serving as our
drug-runners delight. The plot concerns Mookie Pearl’s quest to save the dying
mafia leader by hunting out the fabled fifth pigment, Death’s Head: the purple
pigment; the lifegiver. Along the way, Mookie encounters a range of different
mythical beasts and bizarre creatures, as well as seeing whatever The Blue
Blazes show him. But things get complicated (as ever!) when Mookie’s daughter,
Nora, comes into the fray.
Wendig
has really created a fascinating and original main character in Mookie Pearl.
He’s physically enormous – a real, old fashioned street thug. But underneath is
a quieter, more contemplative individual with some deep regrets about his past
and a driving passion for charcuterie. (Yes – charcuterie.) The side characters
are all very well realised and contribute to the frantic plot in ways which are
continually surprising. But Mookie is the star of this novel, and it’s all the
better for it. Wendig writes in a frenzied third person present tense which
moves rapidly through the plot, and for most of the book Mookie acts as our POV
character, with the occasional change to some of the other major players in the
story. It’s an excellent style that had me gripped from page one and always
dying to read just one more chapter.
Wendig’s
writing style is quite specific to him – it’s a take-no-shit, balls-to-the-wall
style that fits in with the setting and characters of The Blue Blazes well. Wendig doesn’t pull his punches when it comes
to cursing and gore – and indeed, much of the humour derives straight from his
swear-addled prose and blood-splashed pages. The dialogue is crisp and flows
quickly, with a dark humour which Wendig relishes throughout. It’s a style
which Wendig is well-known for and as my first Chuck Wendig novel, I found it
to be a real breath of fresh air in a subgenre which sometimes feels a little
stuffy and manufactured. But it won’t be for everyone – so beware.
The Blue Blazes was one of the most
fun experiences I’ve had in fiction this year and it’s got me chomping at the
bit for more from Mookie Pearl – hell, just more from Chuck Wendig. He shows us
an urban fantasy world which we’ve not really seen before, and manages to
breathe some much-needed life into some tired gangster movie style clichés,
with a distinctive vision of both the real and criminal underworlds. The Blue Blazes shows us Hell in
Technicolor, and each pigment jumps straight off the page in High Definition
Wendig-Vision. It’s brilliant stuff, and I just hope there’s more to come from
Mookie Pearl and the five pigments of the Underworld.
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Thanks to Angry Robot for supplying me with an ARC of The Blue Blazes.
2 comments:
This sounds AMAZING, great review. I put in a request for it on NetGalley the other day but if I'm not accepted I'd definitely consider buying it myself when I'm not flat broke!
A Big Thug with a quiet squishy underside? hmm I'm picking this up and meeting The Man Himself, the beart, the new author icon and target of my stalker like crazed self. I look forward to reading this so much! mustn't...read your review yet! ahhhhh
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